BIP39 native-language display wordlists mapped to canonical English

The discussion revolves around the implementation and challenges associated with a new scheme for non-English seedphrases that builds on existing BIP39 standards. The primary focus is on the non-widespread support for non-English BIP39 and the issues inherent in the system, such as the lack of easy translation and incomplete language support. The key advantage of this new approach is its ability to convert non-English seedphrases into English counterparts using matching wordlists, which facilitates the use of standard English BIP-39 implementations for wallet recovery. This eliminates dependence on specific implementations for various languages.

Another aspect covered is the potential confusion arising from having overlapping words in both the existing BIP39 lists and the new scheme. This overlap could lead to ambiguities in determining the scheme used if a seedphrase contains words present in both lists. It highlights the importance of maintaining clear distinctions between different schemes to avoid such issues.

Furthermore, the discussion includes technical considerations like checksum validity, which can be verified before translating a non-English seedphrase, ensuring that the integrity of the seedphrase is maintained post-translation. The entropy, derived from word indices, remains intact during translation, preserving the checksum's validity.

The proposal also suggests submitting this scheme as a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) to ensure wider adoption and interoperability among various wallets. This submission should include stipulations against the use of non-English BIP39 except as a method for importing, to streamline and standardize user experiences across platforms. Additionally, it discusses the collection of prefix statistics from each wordlist to analyze common prefixes and their frequencies, which could inform improvements to the scheme.

Lastly, the email touches upon the handling of diacritics and accented characters, proposing that the system should validate the uniqueness of words differing only by diacritics and accept similar character inputs to accommodate limitations of typical input devices. This would enhance usability for speakers of languages like Spanish or Turkish, where such characters are prevalent.